Voice Vlan Configuration at Branch Location

[bsciarra1]

I have a questions about how to implement voice into my network at a branch location.

Should I connect my L2 poe 2960 (for phones) into one of the ports on my 4-port etherswitch module of my 2811 router, (Fa0/0 is used by data switch).

Or should I do a router on a stick method where is subinterface the fa0/0 into fa0/0.1 and fa0/0.2, and trunk both vlans from my switches to my router.

I'm not sure about Router-on-a-stick because it seems like if i subinterface one physical port into two ports then I will not be able to use the full bandwidth of the port. 

I tested the first option with the etherswitch module and intervlan routing happens on the 2811, but are there considerations or best practices that I'm not thinking about.. 

Any ideas or thoughts let me know, thanks...

[dixho · Accepted solution]

I have two factors in my mind: redundancy and bandwidth. Ideally, you use the 2 on-board FE ports as etherchannel and connect these two ports to 2960 via etherchannel and 802.1q trunk. Not sure if you can one of the port on the 4-port etherswitch module to substitute the function of the other on-board FE port.

If etherchannel is not possible, I prefer to use router and a stick if the routed traffic on the voice and data VLAN is less than 100Mbps. Having to FE connectsion between the 2960 and 2811 does not give you any benefits. You can always add a second port if the bandwidth on the VLANs exceed 100Mbps in the future.

[bsciarra1]

Thanks for the reply.  The fa0/1 port on the router is used for a backup dsl line for when our T1 goes down, so I can't use that.  I will test if I can do etherchannel between regular fa port and etherswitch module switchport.  You make a good point I didn't think about, if the lan traffic isn't exceeding 100mbs it really doesn't matter if I'm using one cable or two cables.

[dixho]

HWIC 4-port etherswitch does not support etherchannel. I do not understand why you cannot use one of the ports on the 4-port etherswitch for backing up the DSL line. If you move the cable on fa 0/1 to one of the ports on the etherswitch module. Assign the port as an access port on a VLAN (e.g. VLAN 10). Move the IP address of fa 0/1 to VLAN 10. If you set up the routing protocol correctly, you should able to route the traffic using the SVI interface. As I do not know the actual configuration, I do not know if this is possible.